Integrating Rapid Prototyping into Product and Process Development

Rapid prototyping concepts and skills are being taught to undergraduate manufacturing engineering students at Texas State University-San Marcos, not as an independent course, but as a part of the broad concept of product and process development. In such approach, students get a hands-on experience in a variety of rapid prototyping processes such as FDM, LOM, Zcorp 3DP, and 3D system’s InVision and they apply them in their industry-sponsored or research-based senior capstone design projects. In such approach students get a good understanding about the specifications, cost, and quality of the parts fabricated by each rapid prototyping machine. They also learn how to select the optimum process for each component of their product. In this paper, teaching and assessment methods for such learning experience are explained and a few samples of the previous projects are presented. 1Introduction The NSF National Science Board in a recent report identified that one of the key challenges in engineering education is in response to global change that has encouraged US companies to outsource their production and service units to overseas. The Board recommended that the education and skills of U.S. engineers should change in a way that cannot be easily replaced by engineers in other countries. Some of the important characteristics of the US engineers should be the ability to solve “complex interrelationships” and “encompass human and environmental factors”[1]. According to a report of the national innovation initiative summit, Innovate America, “innovation will be the single most important factor in determining America’s success trough the 21 century.” [2] These two studies support previous studies conducted by the Society of Manufacturing Engineers (SME) entitled “Manufacturing Engineering for the 21 Century” [3] and the criteria set by Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology (ABET). The SME study identified communication skills, teamwork, project management, business skills, and life-long learning as some key competency gaps in recent graduates of engineering programs. ABET criteria [4] maintain that “students must be prepared for engineering practice through the curriculum culminating in a major design experience based on the knowledge and skills acquired in earlier course work and incorporating engineering standards and realistic constraints that include most of the following considerations: economic, environmental, sustainability, manufacturability, ethical, health and safety, social, and political.” Texas State University-San Marcos (Texas State) is a student-centered institution and is training about 28,000 graduate and undergraduate students. High-quality teaching, one-on-one academic and career advising, and the student-friendly system are among the distinctive features